FirstLine Therapy® (FLT)

A Therapeutic Lifestyle Program

FirstLine Therapy® will help you live your life in a way that improves your health. We’ll teach you to make healthier choices every day that will enhance your health and help prevent disease.

Learn from other’s who have succeeded in changing their lives for the better–watch the FLT video below.

Nutrition and Lifestyle: Two Powerful Ingredients for Chronic Disease Management

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S. These illnesses are responsible for 7 of every 10 deaths, affect the quality of life of 90 million Americans, and consume 78% of all health care expenditures. Because a wide variety of these conditions are caused by unhealthy lifestyle habits, national clinical guidelines for their management advocate a multifactorial lifestyle approach designated “therapeutic lifestyle changes” or “TLC.”

FirstLine Therapy (FLT) is a comprehensive TLC program that will provide your patients with the knowledge they need to make healthy lifestyle choices each day going forward. Helping your patients adopt a therapeutic lifestyle is the first and arguably the most important therapy doctors can use to treat many chronic health problems.

Lifestyle Medicine: A New Standard for Managing Chronic Illness

Leading health organizations now recommend therapeutic lifestyle change and lifestyle medicine as the “first line of therapy” for treating and reducing the risk of common conditions such as:

Overweight/Obesity

High cholesterol

High blood pressure

Metabolic syndrome

Type 2 diabetes

Cardiovascular disease

Osteoporosis

Conditions related to aging

Lifestyle choices are also the key to addressing other health concerns and symptoms, such as:

Why is FLT Different?

The science-based concept that led to the development of the FLT program is as follows—rather than having to observe many years of declining health and disability in patients, good health and high levels of function are maintained well into old age whereby the years of infirmity and compromised function are compressed into the final years of life (Figure 1)

“Chronic illness may presumably be postponed by changes in life style, and it has been shown that the physiologic and psychologic markers of aging may be modified. Thus, the average age at first infirmity can be raised, thereby making the morbidity curve more rectangular.”

~ N Engl J Med 303:130-35 (1980) ~

“Persons with high health risks…had twice the cumulative disability of those with low health risks.”

~ N Engl J Med 338:1035-41 (1998) ~

More about FLT

1. It’s not just a weight loss program

While most programs are focused on weight, FLT is a comprehensive TLC program, best used as a first line treatment for common, chronic health problems. The FLT program is the perfect prescription for conditions such as obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and many others. It works because it addresses the underlying causes of these conditions, such as unhealthy body composition (lean mass to fat mass ratio), insulin resistance, hormone imbalance, inflammation, and other physiological issues.

2. The FLT dietary plan is different

FLT uses a low-glycemic-load diet that is consistent with current research. New research has shown that low-glycemic diets are more effective than lowfat diets in treating obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Patients report less hunger, more energy, and higher compliance with the FLT diet than with commonly recommended lowfat diets.

3. FLT incorporates medical foods and nutraceuticals

Medical foods are designed to address the unique nutritional needs of patients with specific health problems. Nutraceuticals provide targeted nutritional support for specific functions, such as supporting insulin sensitivity, managing blood lipids, slowing glucose uptake, etc. Their appropriate use can improve patient compliance, enhance program effectiveness, and shorten the time it takes to achieve risk reduction goals.

4. FLT has been demonstrated to be effective in controlled clinical trials

Most other diets have not.

5. FLT provides everything you need to implement a successful TLC program